Review of book by Cindy Milstein, providing an overview of the anarchist movemnt at this moment, as she sees it. The review gives a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of her ethical approach to anarchism.

Cindy Milstein is a speaker and writer who is well-known to US anarchists. There seems to be hardly an anarchist conference or bookfair which she does not speak at and usually has been involved in organizing. Her rapid-fire speech is as well-known as her open-mindedness and friendliness to people from all trends within anarchism. She is also prominent as a former student of Murray Bookchin (1921—2006). Coming out of the anarchist-communist tradition, he was extremely influential. This book is a reworked collection of a few of her essays. It serves as both an introduction to anarchism and an overview of the current state of the anarchist movement (community, milieu, or whatever)—as she sees it.

There is much to like about this little book. While Milstein is Bookchin’s follower in many ways, she does not continue his method of discussion. Bookchin was famous for drawing sharp lines between his views and others, such as “deep ecology” or what he called “life-style anarchism” (Bookchin, 1995). He attacked these opposing views vituperatively and intemperately, despite the fact that his opponents agreed with his goals. Milstein, on the contrary, believes “Anarchists attempt to find harmony in dissonance…” (p. 64). She seeks to include all trends within anarchism. “Anarchism…is a way of asking the right questions without seeking a monopoly on the right answers” (p. 73).

However this also may be somewhat of a weakness. On life or death questions, during a revolution, say, there may be only one right answer, or at least only one thing that can be done. After so many failed revolutions (Spain being only the most famous), we cannot be so cavalier about trying to have the right answers. Milstein does not suppress her own views on issues in dispute, but she does not bring out what the inter-anarchist disputes are about and what each side has to say. Since I disagree with her on several points, I find this unfortunate.

Anarchism’s Moral Vision

Her approach to anarchism is based on ethics, ideals, a moral vision. “I firmly believe in the expansive ethical sensibility that has marked anarchism as a tradition” (p. 3). “Communism’s overarching project is to ensure the communal good” (p. 13). “Ethics still animate anarchism, supplying what’s most compelling about it in praxis….From the outset, anarchism grounded itself in a set of shared values” (p. 25).

This approach is superior to that of Marxism. While Marx’s work is drenched in moral passion, this is not expressed in his theory. You can read shelves of Marx’s works (and I have) without finding a statement that “communism seeks the communal good” or that people “should” be for socialism (communism). Socialism is seen as something that will happen, replacing capitalism, without giving reasons why we should be for it. At most, Marx and Engels expressed an alternative, “ruin or revolution,” or “socialism or barbarism” (in Luxemburg’s phrase)—but not why we should chose socialist revolution over ruin (which may seem obvious but remains a moral choice).

Historically anarchism is rooted in a moral critique of capitalist society and an ideal vision of a new society of freedom, equality, solidarity, and justice. Milstein is quite right to focus on this, as did Bookchin, her mentor. The problem occurs when a theory is limited to a moral-only approach. Yes, libertarian communism is good, communally and individually, but how can it come about? What can we do, strategically, to create it? What are the social agencies that can create socialism? Instead of “the proletariat” or “the wretched of the earth,” Milstein and other Bookchinites believe that social change will be brought about by good people, citizens, “people capable of sustaining a new society” (p. 69), ignoring class or background.

To his credit, Marx created a theory of how capitalism works, what trends in it are moving toward socialism and what are moving against it (towards barbarism). What is the social force to create the new society? Marx believed in the centrality of the working class created by capitalism, a collective agency brought together by modern industry and modern cities, pushed to become aware of our oppression and to revolt against it. He saw workers as a leading grouping in an alliance with other oppressed groupings of people.

Anarchists disagreed with much of Marx’s program: the transitional state, centralized economy, and electoral strategy. But Milstein notes that the “classical anarchists” also “looked to forms of worker-oriented socialism” (p. 27). She reports this as a historical fact, but does not discuss why they did this.

Bookchin fiercely rejected the idea of the revolutionary potential of the modern working class (see “Listen Marxist!”; in Bookchin, 1986). He noted the nonrevolutionary consciousness of most workers today—which is true (for now), but is also true of the whole population (the majority of which is working class).

Milstein does not repeat Bookchin’s denunciation of “proletarian socialism.” But she distinguishes between “classical anarchism” and “renewed anarchism.” This is another version of the two trends in modern anarchism, as expressed by Uri Gordon, David Graeber, and others (Price, 2009). By “classical anarchism” she means what Schmidt & van der Walt (2009) call “the broad anarchist tradition.” Classical anarchism, she claims, suffered from “a workerist orientation…” (p. 83). She does not explain what she means by “workerism” or why she rejects it. Instead she mentions five influences on “renewed anarchism,” none of which include workplace struggle among their efforts. (The broad anarchist tradition included those who combined working class struggles with nonclass issues of gender, nationality, etc. Unfortunately it also included those who wrongly had a wooden class-only approach. But supporting nonclass struggles does not require rejecting the importance of workers’ struggles.)

Rather, she notes, “Bookchin’s writings pointed to the city or neighborhood as the site of struggle, radicalization, dual power, and finally revolution…” (p. 84). I am all for community organizing, but the community—by itself—does not have the potential oppositional power of occupied workplaces in a general strike, of shutting down an economy—and of starting it up in a different way. Bookchin carried his views out to the end, to advocating an electoralist strategy of seeking to get his followers elected to local governments (cities, counties, or towns). There they were supposed to use the local state structures to create libertarian communism (Biehl, 1998). This was an unrealistic reformist scheme (Milstein does not raise it).

Anarchist Strategy

While many anarchists simply reject the insights of Marx, Milstein believes that his work is useful for anarchists. “More than anyone, Karl Marx grasped the essential character of what would become a hegemonic social structure—articulated most compellingly in his Capital…” (p. 21). She refers favorably to Marx’s explanation of the commodification of society under capitalism. But she does not refer to the way he describes capitalism as creating the working class as a collective agent in the process of production.

Also, she misstates the nature of economic “value,” the foundation of prices, in Marx’s theory. She writes, “‘Value’ is determined by how much one has to exchange and accumulate: money, property, or especially power over others” (p. 21). Not at all. To Marx, “exchange value” is the socially necessary labor time spent in producing a commodity (that is, it is as if the commodity embodies the labor spent in making it). Consistent with the rest of her perspective, she leaves out the importance of the worker in creating capitalist value.

It is the workers who most directly feel the oppression of the capitalists on their backs, so to speak. Therefore the workers are most likely to resist the oppression of the capitalists. At least, more likely than bank managers, farmers, or police officers. In any case, the workers, at the very site of exploitation, are in a better position to resist capitalist oppression than are “citizens” randomly selected from various classes.

And the working class—as a class—overlaps with all other oppressed groups: women, GLBT people, People of Color, oppressed nations, prisoners, etc. That these oppressions must also be fought does not mean that class exploitation should be ignored. Quite the contrary. The greatest revolutionary potential is where class and nonclass oppressions overlap (as with Black women workers).

Milstein’s Strategy

Similar to other advocates of a “new” or “renewed” anarchism. Milstein does raise a strategy. “…Small-scale projects—from bike cooperatives to free schools…[contain] the kernels of destroying the current vertical social arrangements” (p. 15). “The idea is that people establish counterinstitutions as well as lifeways that gain enough force…to ultimately exist on a level with, or finally in victorious contestation to, centralized power” (p. 46). She is also for direct action and demonstrations, but this seems to be the center of her strategy. This is not really a “new” strategy. It goes back to Proudhon’s mutualism (a credit union of sorts which would grow to peacefully replace capitalism and the state). He counterposed this to building labor unions or to aiming for a revolution.

Milstein does not discuss the “classical” criticism of this strategy, let along refute it. The problem—then and now—is that the capitalist class rules the state and, obviously, the market. Alternate institutions are only allowed to exist at the margins. Here they either fail or succeed, in which case they are integrated into the hierarchical society (there are plenty of successful coops, but they are no threat to capitalism). But what if alternate institutions did become threats to the established institutions? What if anarchist-led cooperatives threatened to replace the giant corporations which produce steel or autos or gasoline (which is…unlikely!). Then the other businesses would boycott the cooperatives, deny them loans, refuse to let them use the transport system. The state would raise their taxes, pass impossible-to-follow regulations, or just outlaw them.

This is not a criticism of building cooperatives or living in a bohemian style. These may be good in themselves. But they are not a suffient strategy for changing society. In short, there is no alternative to the “classical” anarchist revolutionary strategy of building popular movements, among the workers and all oppressed groups, prefiguring the future by being as democratic as possible in the mass organizations, fighting against the bosses and all oppressions—aiming for an eventual insurrection of the working class and all the oppressed.

Milstein’s focus on ethics is absolutely correct. In particular I like her commitment to democracy (direct democracy), which many anarchists reject. But we do not have to choose between values and a materialistic analysis of how capitalism works and how it can be challenged. Whatever Marx—or Bookchin—thought, these are not incompatible perspectives. A moral analysis can show us the goal and cause us to reject the current system. A materialistic analysis can offer guidance as to which forces are going in a libertarian direction and which are moving in a regressive direction. And morality can, again, guide us in deciding which to choose. That is a discussion and a decision. Cindy Milstein’s book is a valuable contribution to that discussion.

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Comments (3 of 3)

There are many good people who are not tired by thinking and speculating, and even struggle for a better world. Among these good people many drew their conclusions from emotional inclinations with scant respects to facts of life. So unsure about the bold claim: "we want a society of this kind because we prefer it so", they franticly search for spiritual-philosophy-ethics-moral justification. They are not aware of (and not satisfied by) scientific finding that it is better (healthier and satisfying) for humans to live in a libertarian communist (harmonious) social order are not.

As they are not bound by materialistic way of referring to reality, they present as options strategies and tactics just because they like them.

Honest reformist motivated by dislike or despair of revolution do really believe the non revolutionary way to abolish capitalism is an option.

In my opinion, to say that libertarian communism is "better (healthier and satisfying)" and "harmonious" is to make an ethical statement. It is one which takes into account both scientific analysis and moral values.

Excellent review of Cindy's book. Don't know if I've ever said it
directly to you, but I certainly agree that prefigurativism can't be the
core of a program of anarchist transformation. In part, because it seems
to assume that at some point when they become "irrelevant," the
propertied classes will just vote themselves out of existence. They
won't do this. They'll have to be pushed out. Cindy, and Bookchin before
her, don't like to face this and so they sidestep it without ever really
attempting to show why it's not so.

My response was:

True. But revolutionary class-struggle anarchism is also prefigurative, in the
sense of builllding mass movements and organizations on a participatory
democratic and egalitarian basis. Or so I would formulate

As much as this pains those who have participated in the anarchist communist experience between 2011 and 2014 in the Canadian prairies, today, Prairie Struggle announces its official secession and subsequent disbandment. To this day, Prairie Struggle was the only specific platformist organization in the Canadians prairies. Though some may recall the existence of an anarchist communist group in Regina affiliated to the ACF (Anarchist Communist Federation of North America) in the 80s, organized anarchism in the prairies has had many difficulties, some of which the Prairie Struggle Project has failed to overcome. Despite its downfall, Prairie Struggle, for one last time, offers a look into the organization, its failures and its small victories.

In recent days, following the events of the demonstrations on December 1st for the presidential inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto, during which the police forces, both of the Federal [national] and Federal District [Mexico City] forces, brutally repressed demonstrators - officials of the Federal District government, amongst whom were the head of government of the FD and the capital's attorney, have made statements declaring that those responsible for the clashes are anarchist groups.[Castellano] [Français] [Deutsch]

In the last 5 months, some anarchists from Regina have been engaged in the difficult process of creating a revolutionary anarchist organization and debating its political influences. As a result of these meetings and debates, we are proud to finally announce the existence of Prairie Struggle Organization based in Regina. To hopefully start a dialogue with anarchists in the west of Canada and beyond, we feel it important to let you know why anarchist politics in Regina are taking this direction.

Since May 1, 2006 we have seen a slow opening up of mass struggles on a scale not seen in recent memory, amplified by the silent economic crash in 2008. From the massive day without an immigrant to the historic Arab Spring; the Wisconsin workers uprising to the prisoners strikes in Georgia and California; Occupy Wall Street to the rallies for Justice for Trayvon Martin; General strikes of students in Chile and Quebec and of workers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. People committed to real change cannot help but feel the wind in our sails. People are rising and refusing, struggles are igniting, common ground is revealing itself, we are beginning to feel and take back our power, everywhere.

Despite the rise of new fighting forces, pain is growing not decreasing. Symbolic changes at the peak of empire—codename Obama—have only served to further entrench the direction of decline, with Democrats bringing the stick when the Republicans aren’t there to make their bad cop look good. Deportations have increased, prisons are overflowing, the local face of a global war given new legitimacy, while organized racist violence dares to seize an ever greater public stage. Cutbacks and the destruction of public safety nets pay for corporate welfare and bankers’ bailouts. Ecological destruction continues apace: tar sands mining, fracking, nuclear power, and the daily grind of a system that cannot long coexist with dignified human life on earth.

Mayday is not only a time to remember the sacrifices of so many before us who fought against all authority – capitalism and the state, patriarchy and white supremacy, empire and ecocide – but also a time to reflect on and celebrate the achievements of our movements today. In recent months the world has again been changed by the actions of masses of ordinary people.

Anarchism and the philosophy of pragmatism can add to each other. Pragmatism is explained as a philosophy of active experience and experimental naturalism. Pragmatism advocates radical, decentrlized democracy and industrial self-management, which is very close to anarchism. However pragmatists have often opposed reformist perspectives to revolution. The case for revolution is presented.

This essay is slightly expanded from one which was rejected by a US anarchist magazine for political reasons. It deals with a disagreement among activists: Should we propose that the movement raise a program of demands? I think that anarchists should, but with a more libertarian-democratic version than the liberals and state socialists. The essay is followed by a response to the political points raised by the editors of the anarchist journal.

This essay is an argument for moving towards national organization in the United States. It explores the limitations of political organization today, recent positive experiences, and possible ways to build on the present to push forward.

As much as this pains those who have participated in the anarchist communist experience between 2011 and 2014 in the Canadian prairies, today, Prairie Struggle announces its official secession and subsequent disbandment. To this day, Prairie Struggle was the only specific platformist organization in the Canadians prairies. Though some may recall the existence of an anarchist communist group in Regina affiliated to the ACF (Anarchist Communist Federation of North America) in the 80s, organized anarchism in the prairies has had many difficulties, some of which the Prairie Struggle Project has failed to overcome. Despite its downfall, Prairie Struggle, for one last time, offers a look into the organization, its failures and its small victories.

Since May 1, 2006 we have seen a slow opening up of mass struggles on a scale not seen in recent memory, amplified by the silent economic crash in 2008. From the massive day without an immigrant to the historic Arab Spring; the Wisconsin workers uprising to the prisoners strikes in Georgia and California; Occupy Wall Street to the rallies for Justice for Trayvon Martin; General strikes of students in Chile and Quebec and of workers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. People committed to real change cannot help but feel the wind in our sails. People are rising and refusing, struggles are igniting, common ground is revealing itself, we are beginning to feel and take back our power, everywhere.

Despite the rise of new fighting forces, pain is growing not decreasing. Symbolic changes at the peak of empire—codename Obama—have only served to further entrench the direction of decline, with Democrats bringing the stick when the Republicans aren’t there to make their bad cop look good. Deportations have increased, prisons are overflowing, the local face of a global war given new legitimacy, while organized racist violence dares to seize an ever greater public stage. Cutbacks and the destruction of public safety nets pay for corporate welfare and bankers’ bailouts. Ecological destruction continues apace: tar sands mining, fracking, nuclear power, and the daily grind of a system that cannot long coexist with dignified human life on earth.